#greenseers

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Bran III

He was desperately afraid.

“Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?” he heard his own voice saying, small and far away.

And his father’s voice replied to him. “That is the only time a man can be brave.”

Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die.

Death reached for him, screaming.

Bran spread his arms and flew.

[blankfairy]

the fire spread throughout my bones and stayed

Summary: She knows. Larys never told her of his very first dream, but when his feet found the weirwood he found her, too, dark hair braided over her shoulder, cotton dress stained with smudges of grass and dirt. She’d smiled at him, the way an older sibling should, the way ten-year-old Harwin never did to his crippled nine-year-old brother, and offered to pray to the old gods with him.

Her very presence had been prayer enough.

Or, nine-year-old Larys Strong and his fourteen-year-old half-sister, Alys, have more in common than just a father.

Characters: Young Larys Strong, Young Alys Rivers.

Warnings: Internalized ableism, ableism, ableist language.

read on ao3!

The dreams come in the blackest nights, in a flash of fire and smoke and a spreading pain behind his eyes, thrumming in tandem with his tempest of a heartbeat.

A flash of marbled silver, and two dragons dancing above Gods Eye; Harrenhal consumed by flame. Choking ash and blood spilling blood and blood spilling blood —

When Larys wakes, his skin sheened with sweat, a black bird with three beady eyes bears down upon him, crooning to him in the crackling voice of the Stranger. The only breath that can fill his lungs is thick and dark and acrid.

He does not realize the dream has ended until he feels the grass beneath his bare feet, his cane sinking into the mud, and the bleeding eyes of the weirwood boring into him. The summer air is warm, but he shivers anyways, because the Old Gods have only ever looked through him, never at him.

I’m still dreaming, Larys thinks, but the words pass through him like wind through stalks of ghost grass. The pale light of the full moon filters through the weirwood’s amber leaves, rustling in the wind; their shadows dance upon the earth. He falls splay-kneed in front of the tree.

Alys is behind him.

The old gods tell him. In the muffled footfalls in dirt, in the sound of grass brushing at the hem of her dress. She treads carefully in the godswood; Larys can only think of his brute of a big brother crashing through the trees as if the very land was made for him to desecrate.

She slips beneath the gnarled branches of the weirwood and sits beside him, sparing him no peace. “It happened again, didn’t it?”

Larys glances at her. It must be the hour of the wolf, but Alys’ eyes are bright, as if she hasn’t been sleeping at all; she’s only fourteen, tall and lean, but seems so much older and wiser in the dark.

“No,” he answers in a quiet, low voice.. He gnaws at his lip, even though the maester and his father have told him off for it more times than he can count. He feels the tips of his ears fluster fire-hot.

She knows. Larys never told her of his very first dream, but when his feet found the weirwood he found her, too, dark hair braided over her shoulder, cotton dress stained with smudges of grass and dirt. She’d smiled at him, the way an older sibling should, the way ten-year-old Harwin never did to his crippled nine-year-old brother, and offered to pray to the old gods with him.

Her very presence had been prayer enough.

Alys kneads her fingers into the white roots protruding from the ground, tilting her head. She looks more like him than Harwin does, all bone and willow-thin limbs that seem too long for her body. If he didn’t know any better, if his father hadn’t clout him on the ear the first and only time he’d suggested Alys was his full-blooded sister, he could have believed they had the same mother.

“What did you see this time?”

Her voice pulls at the words lodged in his throat, willing them free, when all Larys wants to do is sit in silence and pretend he’s the normal, no-name second son of Lyonel Strong, who has no clubfoot and doesn’t dream of the future’s fires.

“Harrenhal was…” Larys frowns. If his dreams are true, past and future, as Alys once said, what kind of power does he grant them by speaking them aloud? He rolls his lip between his teeth, harder, and the taste of iron spreads across his tongue.

Alys watches, but doesn’t scold; she only smiles, like he imagines their mother would have, and takes his hand. “We’ll strike a deal. I’ll tell you of my last green dream. You tell me yours.”

Through the darkness Larys sees her eyes, the same shade as sage and pine needles, lined with something black. A streak runs down her lips. She’s staring the same way the weirwood does; the same way the three-eyed raven did each time Larys awoke.

Witch, they call her, the same way they call him Clubfoot, but in front of him he only sees his half-sister, not quite his flesh and blood, but more than a stranger. He and Harwin share parents, but with Alys, Larys shares dreams, and shouldn’t that mean more than having the same mother?

“Okay,” he says tentatively, sighing, trying to ease the weight pressing down upon his shoulders. His breath comes heavy and thick. “You first.”

Alys nearly grins, canine teeth poking into the flesh of her lower lip. “A prince.” The words come from her lips quicker than lightning. “Silver-haired, with sapphire eyes. His great dragon danced above the Gods Eye. Her shadow swallowed the Riverlands whole.”

“I saw our home burn,” Larys sputters, not allowing the air between them breath for a single second. “The flames rose so high they touched the clouds. And— And I saw your dragon, too. I think. There were two. One was red, and…”

“Harrenhal hasn’t burned since Aegon’s Conquest,” Alys cuts in sharply. “We see the past too sometimes, you know.”

“It wasn’t Balerion who burned it, it was…” Larys rubs his fingers together and feels soot between them, mixed with something sticky and wet. The flush spreads to his cheeks “It doesn’t matter. You don’t believe me.”

“I will always believe you, little brother. You saw the past, that’s all.” Alys squeezes his hand. Her smile quivers. He thinks some of the ash rubs off on to her, but when she draws her hands back, the only thing they’re stained with is smudges of dirt. “We must stick together, you and I.”

“I know, sister.” The word is cloyingly sweet on his tongue. Only here, in witness of the gods, are they allowed to share blood and bone and dreams.

“The world will fear us some day, as they did the greenseers of old. You and me and my silver dragon prince.”

Larys nods, but mouth is full of cotton and his eyes heavy. He can only bring himself to look up at the eyes of the weirwood, twisted and scorned, glaring into him. He wipes his hands on his tunic and heaves himself onto his feet without waiting for Alys. Night melts into dawn across the godswood, at the corner of his eye; he wonders if his father would even care if he was found missing from his bed. Alys could go disappear for a moon and no one would bat an eye. He leans on his cane, legs aching and back burning. He tells himself it’s from sitting improperly, but everything has begun hurting more and more as of late.

Alys stands after him, takes his free hand again, and wordlessly they begin the walk through the godswood, back to Harrenhal. Her nails dig into his skin.

If she feels the blood dripping from his palms, or smells the ash clinging to his frame, she says nothing of it.

[hollowwhisperings]

"Speaker For The Dead": Bran Stark as a Reference to Ender Wiggin.

I read the first two Ender books when FAR too young to handle their themes of, y'know, the intimacy of xenocide when you're a child soldier. Scary stuff for a kid of age with the protagonist.

So colour me Unsurprised upon relearning that the language the aliens of SFTD's aliens to speak with humans... is named "Stark".

Because of course GRRM would find joy in a conveniently horrifying-by-implication Pun.

The Premise of "Speaker For The Dead" (the sequel to "Ender's Game", a Differently Horrifying inspiration for some of my childhood nightmares) is this: human colonists and the local alien species had been more-or-less at peace until a human is Suddenly & Inexplicably Murdered by the aliens who considered him a Friend.

Due to [the Plot of Ender's Game], Humans are wary of Jumping To Conclusions as to this seemingly Senseless Violence and Ender Wiggin (of Ender's Game) stops at the planet to Speak at some Funerals. To properly Speak for the Deceased, Ender investigates the Murders and because of [the plot of Ender's Game] feels certain that there has been a Fatal Translation Error.

Spoilers for SFTD & comparisons to Bran's POV Arc under cut.

He's Right.

The Piqueninos (the aliens) are still learning to communicate with the humans they're sharing a planet with, using a language named "Stark". The deceased men were both held in great esteem by the Piqueninos, one of the primary reasons why [A Xenologist Expert] was sought after: why kill someone who was their Friend?

It turns out that Ritualistically Vivisecting respected males of their society is how the Piqueninons Evolve: they had spent the entire book calling Trees their "Fathers" and they had meant that literally.

The gratuitously violent murders of their human friends were efforts by the Piqueninos to honour these men by making them Fathers, using the same method of Deification on the human men as they would to their own kind.

Cue the Horrific Revelation that, no, Humans Do Not Transistion From Life Phases via being Ritualistically Killed to Become Trees: the Piqueninos efforts to "honour" their Human Friends actually Killed Them. Permanently.

Now let's reevaluate what Bran Stark's been up with the Singers in ASOIAF.

Brynden Rivers has been sending Dreams to kids with Greenseer Potential and directing them North.

Jojen & Bran, inspired by such Dreams, go Beyond The Wall to seek out this "Three-Eyed Crow" who will teach Bran how to "fly".

Bran & Company end up in a magically warded Cave populated by the mythic "Children of the Forest" (Singers) and someone they call "The Last Greenseer", a man who has a weirwood tree growing through him & introduces himself as a Man Formerly Known as Brynden.

contextual clues identify him as "Brynden Rivers": one of three Great Bastards of Aegon IV had with Lady Melissa Blackwood*, Hand & Spymaster to Kings Aerys I & Maekar I, a Disappeared Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

the Singers confirm the religious beliefs shared with the First Men as being Literal: the trees are gods and the gods are trees. Incidentally, Jojen brings up how Revered Greenseers are by those who worship the Old Gods.

Jojen has Greensight and Bran, as someone who can both Skinchange AND Greendream, qualifies for "Greenseer" status. Except... the Singers Very Consistently call Brynden "the Last Greenseer" even with Bran Stark right there contradicting that There Can Be Only One (the Singers also mention greenseers as existing in Plural, historically, & that those of their Own Species have "died out/[faded?]").

Brynden "The Last Greenseer" takes Bran as his [apprentice]. Part of this Training is going into the Weirwood Tree [Hivemind], a network that transcends Time & Space (because Roots, i guess?) and allows Bran to see all sorts of varyingly traumatising Visions.

Bran's lessons require his sitting on a Weirwood Throne beside Brynden who is, incidentally, a body horror Weirwood Tree-Human hybrid now.

BTW, Bran's "training diet" features an Ominously Described "Paste" fed to him by the Singers. It's made from Weirwood Seeds, apparently.

(hey isn't everyone stuck in this spooky underground cave because leaving it means getting eaten by zombies? whete are they getting these Weirwood Seeds from- oh. Hi there, Brynden the Tree-Man Abomination)

wait, if Bran's a Greenseet now then how come the Singers still call Brynden the "Last" Greenseer? is this, perhaps, an instance of, say... interspecies life phase transitions being Poorly Translated to humans due to Trees Being Gods and Trees Transcending Time & Death?

has Jojen, perhaps, Made An Assumption about "when" that Title of "Greenseer" is gained? He had said that Greenseers were Deified as Weirwood Trees, implying they were entombed upon death...

...but what if Dying is part of the deification process?

(well, for a given value of "dying"... *looks at Brynden The Tree-Abomination Rivers*)

...the Cave Singers are totally going to ritualistically vivisect Bran and make him their new Tree God, aren't they.

(and, from the looks of Brynden, some decades into HIS initiation... this process will Not Be Quick nor "Pretty")

Brynden is probably complicit in the Singers' Scheme to Make Bran A Tree, if only due to Brynden being the "Weirwood" Bran's Paste Training Diet is made from.

Brynden might also want Out from the whole "Unnaturally Alive & Conscious This Whole Time" thing because WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO BE ALIVE AS YOU ARE TURNED INTO A TREE.

let us Not Recall the descriptions of: Brynden's current appearance, the many non-peaceful expressions carved as Faces for Heart Trees, the states of humans "honoured" by the Piqueninos in SFTD, any descriptions of what Becoming A Tree involves...

...and any investigation into what, exactly, a Weirwood's "seeds" may be. I stop at "Horus in Set's Salad" and THAT WAS ENOUGH.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG, when Not Being A Tree Hivemind, Brynden & thus Bran seem to fulfil a role not dissimilar to that of "Speakers For The Dead": they examine historic events as Outside parties. Brynden instructs Bran on evaluating his Visions objectively, without reverance nor judgement. At least, I think he did. Again: preservation of own sanity > exact visuak descriptions of events in ASOIAF.

Interestingly, being an effective Speaker for the Dead requires much of the same skillset as a Competent Kingmaker (or, at least, a King UnMaker).

To Conclude, the Similarities*** between Bran's interactions with the Cave Singers and those of Human Friends & Piqueninos in "Speaker For The Dead" are Multiple &, knowing GRRM, probably Deliberate. Let's just hope Meera and Jojen have gone AWOL because Meera is Plotting Arson, not because they're of Interest to the Cave Singers' reproductive purposes too. Both series do enjoy subjecting female characters to Grim Maternity &/or Horrific Relationship Revelations.

Arson is my Ideal Plotline for Meera, Grand Elk Larceny as a distant second. All those "Last Hero" parallels Bran Stark has going on should be Recognised (by Meera) and AVOIDED (by Meera) WITH FIRE. I'm lowkey convinced Brynden would actually prefer being burned alive to "indefinitely trapped in rotting human flesh as he slowly becomes a Tree (potentially for the purposes of interspecies repropogation)".

Footnotes

*Lady Melissa Blackwoof was likely an aunt or sister of Lady Melantha Blackwood of Winterfell, Bran's great-great grandmother: there is almost certainly at least one other Blackwood in Bran's family tree, likely as one of his 4 unnamed great-grandmothers through Grandpa Hoster Tully & Grandma Minisa Whent.

It's also possible that all the Movement at the end of Brynden's reign as Hand (the Lords going to KL for the Great Council that made Betha** Blackwood Queen of Westeros & Grand Escort from KL to The Wall to send off Maester Aemon & Ser Brynden) was how Lord Beron Stark's Heir, Edwyle, ended up married to a Riverlander like Melantha Blackwood.

**Queen Betha & Lady Melantha were almost certaingly "cousins" of some sort to Brynden through his mother, Melissa Blackwood. The exact degree of relation is unknown but It's There.

The degrees of relation from "Lady Melissa, Paramour of Aegon IV" to "Lady Melantha of Winterfell" connect Brynden (through his Blackwood mother) to EVERY living Stark, courtesy of their one unanimously agreed shared Grandpa (Lord Rickard Stark, of "murdered by Aerys II & Part 3 of 4 Extremely Valid Reasons for Ned's Rebellion").

Lady Catelyn's being a Riverlander, specifically a Tully & a Whent of Harrenhal, make it likely that Brynden's related to HER too.

Jon, of course, has Black Betha as all 4 of his paternal great-great grandmothers AND Lady Melantha as one of his maternal ones (the others being Marna Locke, Arya Flint, & Lorra Royce): Jon's somehow being "5/8ths Blackwood" is how I got distracted by the blood ties of Brynden & Bran in the first place!

[sebeth]

The World Of Ice And Fire: The Children Of The Forest (Revised 11/19/22)

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 The previous post discussed the giants, Westeros’s super-sized version of Neanderthals.  We now move on to the Children of the Forest. Of the two races, the Children have had more of an impact on the series’ storylines.

The Children were small, dark, and beautiful. They wore clothes made of leaves and bark (sounds uncomfortable!). They made tools and weapons out of obsidian (dragonglass)and bows of weirwood. The Children had beautiful songs and speech that consisted of the sounds of nature.

The Children worshipped gods that would become the gods of the First Men – gods of streams, forests, etc.

The Children carved faces into the weirwood trees.  The First Men later destroyed weirwood groves as they feared the Children could spy on them via the trees.

Yandel references Mester Yorrick’s Wed to the Sea, Being an Account of the History of White Harbor from Its Earliest Days which mentions the First Men’s practice of blood sacrifice to the old gods, a tradition learned from the Children of the Forest. Blood sacrifices were common as late as 500 years ago.

The Children were led by greenseers. They once inhabited the majority of Westeros. They lived in the woods, crannogs, bogs, marshes, and hollow hills.

The above paragraphs consist of the information Yandel believes to be factual, the following paragraphs are the information Yandel dismisses as myth or exaggerated legends.

Maester Childer’s Winter’s Kings, or the Legends and Lineages of the Starks of Winterfell mentions a ballad that tells of Brandon the Builder seeking the aid of the Children in raising the Wall. He also learned the Children’s language.

Maester Herryk’s History of the Kings-Beyond-The-Wall recalls Gendel and Gorne mediating a dispute between the Children and the giants. This led to the brothers discovering a chain of caverns underneath the Wall.

The greenseers were able to see through the trees, communicate across the realm, and speak the language of ravens. The Maester’s tradition of using ravens to send messages is a result of this “myth”. The greenseers could also see into the past and the future.

The Children’s abilities resulted in the legends of skinchangers and wargs.

Despite Yandel’s dismissal of the Children’s supernatural powers, the readers know the myths are true. Examples include Bran Stark, Bloodraven, and the numerous skinchangers in the series.

The Childen’s motives are unknown. Good, bad, chaotic neutral? Their name, the Children of the Forest, evokes images of friendly, helpful elves but the reality is much harsher. Blood sacrifice, turning Bloodraven into a half-tree, possibly feeding Jojen to Bran, and creating the White Walkers are not the actions of a benevolent race.  Or is it a situation of “desperate times call for desperate measures”?

 Up next, a third race on the Iron Islands?

[asoiafartandstuff]

Art of Melissa blackwood with her 3 kids Mya, Gwenys, & brynden rivers also known as bloodraven. made by the great artist @tosquinha

[ilynpilled]

Your post about jaime addicting to possible kingslaying to the point of killing people with royal blood makes wonder what would his reaction be like when he finds out brienne has targaryen blood 😭

its less about royal blood and more about the possibility of them being a sovereign or proclaiming themselves king so i think brienne is safe. with bran idk jaime is just a meta greenseer or whatever

[death-of-cats]

Looking at the series, GRRM has set up his main protagonists, the "true" heroes, with paralleling, "false" doubles. With Dany, it's Young Griff/Aegon, the mummer's dragon. With Jon, it's Stannis, the false Azor Ahai. And I would make a prediction that with Bran, the true greenseer-cum-god, his double is going to be revealed as Euron, with his raven dreams and ambitions to achieve godhood himself. Obviously this all depends on what goes down in the next book, but I believe the signs are there.

[atopvisenyashill]

and when it’s revealed that bloodraven was called to the true north by the last greenseer who used the “open your third eye and i’ll help you fly” metaphor and that’s why bloodraven used it in an attempt to lure euron and then bran north, but then we meet the last greenseer and it was bran the whole time so bloodraven was taught by bran and then taught bran who will go on to teach bloodraven what then!!

[catofoldstones]

I am too dumb for the asoiaf tumblr fandom and I am too level-headed for the asoiaf reddit fandom, where do I go?

[iceywolf24]

Thinking about how a thousand eyes and one is used as a threat by Bloodraven to inspire fear

A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees - Bran III ADWD

Bran also thinks of his powers as using a thousand eyes after Bloodraven tells him about it.

"If Robb has to go, watch over him," Bran entreated the old gods, as they watched him with the heart tree's red eyes, "and watch over his men, Hal and Quent and the rest, and Lord Umber and Lady Mormont and the other lords. And Theon too, I suppose. Watch them and keep them safe, if it please you, gods. Help them defeat the Lannisters and save Father and bring them home." - Bran VI AGOT

A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… Bran," the tree murmured. - A Ghost in Winterfell ADWD

It ends up being Bran watching over Theon and helps him remember he's not Reek but Theon Greyjoy.

"I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling." - Eddard V

There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes. Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me - Sansa II ACOK

Here's a moment of Sansa thinking of a thousand eyes and it does give her some comfort in the same godswood she dreamed of Bran.

In contrast to Brynden, Bran's thousand eyes inspires hope and bravery.

[determined-wolfworm]

I Can See Things That Happened In The Past

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Bran III

Finally he looked north.

He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal.

And his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him.

[patrocles]

sara snow. daughter of a lord, sister of another. a bastard she-wolf. a keeper of the old faith.

[undertoweyes]

My dream is a aegon or aemond x oc with an oc that is dragonless and STAYS dragonless through the narrative and also has other cultures incorporated into their lore (especially if it’s a rhaenyra and harwin daughter oc)

[greenbardasoiaf]

Are you struggling with an existential crisis? Go as Alys! I think she'll know (how to help). 

This video highlights the magic of Alys Rivers and her home, Harrenhal.  Alys Rivers is a mysterious figure from George R R Martin's book "Fire and Blood," and the earlier short story, "The Princess and the Queen," adapted into the hit HBO Max series "House of the Dragon," prequels to "Game of Thrones" and "A Song of Ice and Fire."

She is a woodswitch, a healer, a skinchanger, possibly even a greenseer. She inhabits the castle Harrenhal, on the shores of the Crater Lake, the God's Eye. The god's Eye, with the Isle of Faces at its center, home to the Green Men and the largest Weirwood grove in Westeros, is a nexus of magic. The castle is reportedly cursed, likely at the behest of the Old Gods that inhabit the Weirwood trees, and their green men protectors.

It was built by Harren the black upon a site of destroyed Weirwoods in defiance of the Old Gods. Some say, part of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" prophecy that led the castle to be ruined by Aegon the conqueror was a dream sent to him by the old Gods to stop Harren and his path of destruction. 

The music in this video is my cover with the vocal talents of Alexandra (see the Aryandmershow YT channel) of "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane," written by their singer, Grace Slick. Alys Rivers is too perfect a fit to Slick's haunting lyrics.

Thanks to the artists, @myredplanet, @chillyravenart, @klaradox @hylora and more!

[asoiafartandstuff]

Art of Brynden Rivers also known as bloodraven & Sheira Seastar dancing by the amazing artist @tosquinha